Editorial Standards

These standards govern everything Cranberry Journal publishes.

Accuracy

We publish what we can verify. Claims of fact are checked against primary sources, documents or direct knowledge before publication. When facts are contested, we say so and attribute the competing accounts.

Sourcing

We prefer named sources. Anonymity is granted only when information is significant, the source's reasoning for anonymity is legitimate, and at least one senior editor knows the source's identity.

Opinion

Opinion and analysis are labeled as such and are held to the same factual standards as reporting. Writers may argue; they may not invent.

Conflicts of interest

Writers disclose financial interests and relationships relevant to their coverage to their editors, and material conflicts are disclosed to readers within the story.

Imagery

Photographs are licensed before they are published. Depending on the story that means a stock licence, a freely licensed image whose terms we name in the credit, a news photograph licensed from the agency that owns it, or an image supplied by its photographer or subject with permission. Every image carries a credit line, and where a licence requires a particular wording we print that wording exactly.

Where a photograph illustrates a subject rather than documenting a specific event, its caption describes what is in the frame and claims nothing further, and a photograph taken at another time is labeled as a file photograph. We do not present illustrations or generated images as documentary photography. We do not use a photograph of an uninvolved person to stand in for someone named in a story, and where no image can be obtained on these terms the story runs without one.

Artificial intelligence